Chantalle demanded to know where Keisha was, and I thought that was probably a good question too, but Rindi said she’d knocked for her and been moaned at for ten minutes by her mum about how she was snissing away in her room being contagious all over the expensive bedclothes.
So that ended where it ended, and I had to tell the story of Charlie’s charity idea all over again for the two new audience members. “He’s writing with his left hand to raise money…”
“He’s written with his left hand every day I’ve known him,” Chantalle grumbled. (I probably should’ve mentioned the “broken” wrist for her benefit.) “That pussy thinks he can get a medal for anything!”
“He… fractured the other one, and he’s getting people to sponsor him to- to pretend to learn to write with his left.”
Uh-oh. It sounded like a much more naff idea now that I was telling it to my cynical mates on the way to school.
“I’ll tell you what would be amazing!” Chantalle snorted. “If he decided to write with his right hand for charity!”
“But it’s-”
“Exactly…”
* * *
It looked as if Charlie’d pulled it off so far.
“I’ve made twelve pounds for Ry’s charity and nobody’s guessed yet!” he mouthed, excitedly, leaning back from his and Andy’s Science desk.
“Charlie, shush!” snapped Miss Heskin. “First you were late, and now talking.”
She must’ve had bat ears to notice him talking to me, because I’d barely made out what he was saying.
“Sorry, Miss!” he wheedled, in his achy-breaky voice.
“Yeah, you don’t understand, Miss,” Andy added. “It’s hard to use the lads’ room with one hand – to start with, it has a door…”
Miss Heskin rolled her eyes. “That’s enough, boys. Charlie, you are forgiven. NOW TURN BACK AROUND AND START LISS-NING!!”
“But Miss!” insisted Charlie. “Won’t you sponsor me to write with my left hand? It’s for the cancer charity.”
“Nice try, Charlie, but that was last week. SETTLE DOWN!!”
I think Asta must’ve known this was a goodwilled con, because she approached him during the lesson and scanned his work with her ever-narrowed sneechy eyes. “Miss!” she shouted, slyly. “You should give him a computer or something – his writing’s terrible!”
But despite that interruption, Charlie and his little lie escaped with twelve pounds promised into the January afternoon sun.
#23 Sitting Down Star Jumps
“Har-leeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to come and see my new pet?”
“Not right now, Kit,” I said. “I’m just finishing off my letter to Shelley…”
At the time, I’d honestly been on the “final” page about Miss Heskin and the January sunshine, but after what happened next, I thought it would be worth putting this in.
“You’ve been writing a letter to Shelley since September!”
“They were all different letters, you remember? You came to the post office with me.”
“Oh. I thought you were buying stamps.”
“I was.”
“You said you were posting letters.”
“I was. Well, I was bringing the stamps home – I wanted to put the letters in that little postbox in the front garden wall. It feels more special.”
“Whyyy?”
“The stamps go on the letters, Kit.”
“I know that! I’m not stupid! Why’s it special?”
“Because it’s our postbox in our wall and I think it’s cute,” I said, exasperated at having to explain this. I’d thought it was cute back when I was her age, and I didn’t see why she didn’t get it.
“Why can’t you use email like a normal person?” Zak grumbled, from his spot on the beanbag watching afternoon TV. (The Story of Tracy Beaker again, his crush on Montanna Thompson still burning strongly.)
“Because letters are more personal,” I sighed. I didn’t want to let on about how I’d caved to email, because I was a little embarrassed how many things I’d had to Google before I understood how to use it properly. It’d been bad enough when Aimee caught me typing “Google” into the Google searchbar.
“But you have to pay for stamps,” he scoffed.
“You have to pay more for the internet.”
“I don’t pay for it, and that’s all I care about.”
Typical Zak. He doesn’t pay for anything. Everything he wants either arrives psychically during his birthday-Crimby fortnight, or can be downloaded from an illegal website.
“Are emails sent by the mouse from the E-sure advert?” asked Kitty, impatiently.
“No, Kit. I think you know that.”
“Oh,” she said, as if she hadn’t known at all. “So they’re e-males because men and boys can send them and we can’t?”
“No,” I groaned. I wanted to think she was having me on, but the truth was, Kitty’s imagination had outgrown her IQ at a ratio of about 11:5. “Maybe in the 1930s.”
“That’s crap,” said Zak. “Email wasn’t invented then!”
I sighed. “Kitty, do you want to come with me when I go to send this letter?”
“No.”
“What’re you up to?” I asked, suspiciously.
“Waiting for you to see my in’t’resting pet.”
I went out to the kitchen to investigate what she was actually doing. She’d been sitting in the utility cupboard this whole time, counting out sweets from our goodie jar into the palm of her muddy hand.
“What’re those for, Kit?” I sighed. “You mustn’t eat them when they’ve been in your dirty hands.”
“Oh, they’re not for me…” she said, mysteriously, kicking her wellie-booted feet against the cupboard doorframe like sitting-down star-jumps.
“So who’re they for?” (I was still worried they’d end up in somebody’s mouth and cause a tummy bug – especially a doggie somebody.)
“My pet.”
I’d become genuinely curious over the course of this conversation. “What sort of pet is it?”
“Ah, wait and see.” She smiled and tapped her nose like a children’s storyteller I remembered from the TV when I was in pre-school. It left a smudge.
“Why does it need jelly beans?”
“Ah…”
“Couldn’t you give it Blackpool Rock instead?”
I had this mental image of some past-its-sell-by sticks of rock in the snack cupboard. (I think Danielle and Chantalle gave them to us after they both went there on holiday – in, er, Year Five.)
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“My pet is not a canon ball.”
“Pardon?”
“It can’t eat its self!” (Where was she getting this mysteriously offbeat knowledge from? At this stage I was willing to bet it was the Brownies.)
“I don’t get it?”
“My pet is a pet rock,” she pointed out, looking genuinely hurt. “And besides…”
“Besides?”
“I already found that. Hendy and Layla eaten it.”
Oh. So much for hopes of avoiding canine gastric problems. I dashed to the window to find them already yakking up in the garden.
It’s looking like I’ll be lucky if my trip to the post office doesn’t evolve into a trip to the vet…
P.S. Give my love to the birthday boy again.
T.T.F.N. Harley & Co. – “Co.” standing for “hormonal lil’ brother, muddy Brownie, and two furballs with squitty stomachs”.
Could it be that after all, Fisty, curled up in the laundry basket, has more sense in her Chihuahua-sized head than the four of them put together?
The next book in the recommended reading order is: Now, Maybe, Probably…
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https://www.dilliedorian.co.uk
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About The Author:
Dillie Dorian is an English author of child and YA realistic fiction. She is notable for offering all fourteen titles in her debut series, A Bended Family, for free online.
Dillie has been “writing” since a very young age, and her mother probably still hoards innumerable sellotape-bound “sequels” to everything from Animal Ark to The Worst Witch.
Her first serious project began in September 2006, with “Oops! Did I Forget I Don’t Know You?”, which sparked countless official sequels of its own within months. Working on this series between the ages of thirteen and fourteen taught her everything she knows about writing, and she hasn’t stopped expanding on the Hartleys’ lives since!
Sitting Down Star Jumps Page 8
